Thermoplastic resins can exhibit excellent physical properties, such as low specific gravity, good moldability, and good impact resistance, as compared with glass or metal. Recently, with the trend of producing low cost, larger and lighter weight electronics, plastic products made of thermoplastic resins are quickly replacing existing glass or metal-based products, thereby broadening application ranges of the thermoplastic resins to fields from electronics to automobile components. In line with this trend, functions as exterior materials and external appearance are increasingly important. In addition, there is a strong need for resins having good scratch resistance for ensuring stability from exterior shock or scratch or flame retardancy for ensuring stability against fire.
Among thermoplastic resins, polycarbonate (PC) resins exhibit excellent properties in terms of mechanical strength such as impact resistance and the like, flame retardancy, transparency, weather resistance, heat stability, and the like, and thus have been applied various fields such as office automation, materials for automobiles, construction materials, and the like. In particular, PC resins are spotlighted for use in housing materials, pedestals and the like for high-class home appliances, such as LCD and LED TVs, and the like, as a replacement for metal or glass. However, the polycarbonate resin has a drawback of very poor scratch resistance.
PC/ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) is a blend of a polycarbonate resin and an ABS resin, and is generally used as an exterior material for electronic products requiring high gloss, high fluidity, high impact resistance, and the like. However, since the PC/ABS has insufficient stiffness and flame retardancy when used alone, reinforced materials (thermoplastic resin compositions) obtained by adding inorganic fillers such as glass fibers and the like to PC/ABS have been developed.
However, since the inorganic fillers generally exhibit low compatibility with the thermoplastic resin and low adhesion thereto, the thermoplastic resin can exhibit deterioration in external appearance and may not exhibit improved properties in terms of stiffness, dimensional stability (low shrinkage), and the like.
Therefore, there is a need for a thermoplastic resin composition which can have improved properties such as low shrinkage, flexural modulus, and the like, while maintaining or improving impact resistance, when the inorganic fillers are added thereto.